Death Profiling of Hospitalized Patients with COVID-19: Experience from a Specialized Hospital in Bangladesh

  1. Md Shahed Morshed
  2. Abdullah Al Mosabbir
  3. Mohammad Sorowar Hossain

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Abstract

The information on characteristics and causes of mortality in deceased patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is scarce in the literature. This study is aimed to document the clinical profile with causes of death in deceased patients admitted to a COVID-19 dedicated hospital in Dhaka, Bangladesh. This cross-sectional retrospective study included 108 RT-PCR confirmed COVID-19 associated deceased patients admitted in Kurmitola general hospital, Dhaka, Bangladesh, between 25 March 2020 and 24 June 2020) Data were collected from hospital records. Causes of death were categorized into early-death and late-death, with a cut-off of 48 hours of hospitalization. Among 809 hospitalized cases of COVID-19, 108 patients died (13.35%) over three months of the study period. The median age of the deceased patients was 60.0 (50.0, 70.0) years; 86.1% were male. About 85% had at least one comorbidity with diabetes mellitus (65.7%) was the most common one. The most common symptoms were breathlessness (88.0%), fever (65.7%) and cough (43.5%). Nearly 75% presented with severe disease. Patients had altered biochemical profiles and were treated with different drugs, including antibiotics and steroids. Young age and undernutrition were two characteristic features. Only one-third got intensive care support. The most common cause of death was acute respiratory distress syndrome (95.37%). Septic shock and acute myocardial infarction were predominant among early death cases, and uremia, hepatic failure, and hyperglycemic crisis were the predominant causes of late hospital death. The findings of this study will help clinicians and policymakers to take the necessary steps to prevent deaths from COVID-19 in the Bangladeshi population. Bangladesh J Microbiol, Volume 38, Number 2, December 2021, pp 45-49

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  1. Version published to 10.3329/bjm.v38i2.58102
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.07.04.21259979: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsIRB: 5,6 The institutional review board of the Biomedical Research Foundation, Bangladesh, approved the study protocol (Ref. no: BRF/ERB/2020/003).
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    There are several limitations of our study. The sample size is small. All the data are retrospective and secondary with a possibility of under-reporting along with many incomplete data.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2021.07.04.21259979v1 on medRxiv